Maghreb - flavour of the month.

The 12th edition of the Maghreb des Livres book fair scheduled for 25-26 February in Paris will highlight the Maghreb contribution to French culture, according to the Coup de Soleil association, organiser of the event. About 230 French and Maghreb authors are expected to sign their books during the fair, which will present "1,000 novels released in France in 2005 on the Maghreb and integration, a huge bookshop of 10,000 books on these recently published themes, and a best of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian editorial production for 2005".

At the same time, Maghreb cinema will be in the spotlight at film festival in Bahrain

The Tunisian-French film "Le Prince", directed by Mohammed Zran, was screened at the opening of the five-day Arabic and French Film Festival in Manama on Saturday (18 February). "This festival is a real opportunity to show great award-winning movies that are unknown in the Middle East," said Alliance Francaise events co-ordinator Nassima Chebel. The schedule of the festival for the rest of the week includes Moroccan films "Le Grand Voyage" by Ismael Ferroukhi and "Ali Zaoua" by Nabil Ayouch, as well as Algerian film "El Manara" by Belkacem Hadjadj.

Le Grand Voyage, Ismail Ferroukhi's full length film, tells the story of a father and son who have very different visions of their trip to Mecca. The two principal characters of Ferroukhi's film were almost strangers to each other. But, during a trip from France to Saudi Arabia, they had the opportunity to understand and like each other.

The Moroccan film has been presented in many film festivals and awarded many prizes.

It has been presented in the Fameck Arab Film Festival, in France, which spotlighted Morocco in its 16th edition, and in the first Maghreban Film Festival of the Eastern Moroccan town, Oujda.


Le Grand Voyage also received the special mention of the jury during the fifth edition of Rotterdam International Film Festival.


"Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets," a contemporary Moroccan coming-of-age drama that played the 2001 festival circuit and went on to win a handful of international awards.

The title character is a homeless boy killed in the film's first sequence who becomes, in death, a martyr to Moroccan social neglect and an inspiration to a trio of other Casablanca street urchins who are the film's protagonists.

The film is exceedingly grim, depicting a juvenile street world of harrowing abuse, casual rape and wholesale drug addiction (the kids are all confirmed glue-sniffers).

At the same time, director Nabil Ayouch balances the pessimism with gorgeous wide-screen photography, a wistfully hopeful conclusion and a succession of gracefully animated sequences designed to show his characters' more gentle inner worlds.

Tags: Morocco, Fes, Maghreb, news